You can wash her butt of--just soak in warm water and loosen off the poop. Dry her of good and let her go. If it happens alot, I heard you can give a bit of molasses to them to help with it, but never tried it. if she's laying consistently, don't worry about it.

chickens, ducks,, seasonal cornish X, horses, sheep, a milk cow, asnd a milk goat, dogs, cats, and eggs in the 'bator.. And the greatest family in the world!

Mine did that too, I think its because I just let them out and she is eating grass and different things they didnt get to all winter. You can wash if you want to or even pull them out but ouch...I left mine alone. Now if it covers her "exit" then you need to get it off, so it doesnt kill her.

Life is short, Break the rules, Forgive quickly, Kiss slowly, Love truly, Laugh uncontrollably, And never regret anything that made you smile. ~*R&C Chickens*~

We fed our hen some active culture yogurt yesterday and cleaned her butt today. We got most of the poop off, but at the base of her feathers right near her butt there was a weird substance. It is granular - almost like a mineral or something. Is that some sort of by product of egg laying? Warm water didn't seem to break it up at all. I tried to get some pictures of it.

I too have a hen that has had poopy vent feathers her entire adult life (3 years). Just this morning I grabbed her and trimmed the feathers around her vent. I do this 1-2 times a year. I think if it isn't parasites, some chickens are just that way.

Wow, they ARE eggs! Now that she's all clean & dried off we inspected her vent again and they are definitely white egg clusters - they look like the lice egg pictures. Our other two hens have them too, but not as badly (and they also don't have any poopy feathers)

We're going to treat them all with lice powder & will let you know how it goes. Thanks again for all the advice.